Laguna Hills Mall

The City Council this week cleared two major hurdles in the long-awaited expansion of the Laguna Hills Mall. In a 4-0 vote, the council approved an environmental impact report detailing the impact the project will have on the surrounding area and approved a site development permit for the 380,000-square-foot project. Councilman R. Craig Scott abstained. The expansion is expected to be built in three phases.

A man suspected of robbing a bank in San Diego was arrested in Laguna Hills after a two-hour, three-county pursuit Monday afternoon, authorities said. Michael Groves, 48, of San Diego walked into the Peninsula Bank of San Diego about 10:15 a.m., displayed a gun and demanded money, said Bill Robinson, spokesman for the San Diego Police Department. The teller handed Groves about $700, which he put in his briefcase before running out of the bank, authorities said.

Laguna Hills Mall has been purchased by the O'Connor Group, a real estate investment firm headquartered in New York. The purchase of the 808,450-square-foot mall for an undisclosed sum was completed last week, said Paul Kastner, an O'Connor group spokesman. The shopping center was one of eight retail properties purchased in Southern California by the East Coast firm, which also bought The Promenade in Woodland Hills.

Residents are invited to join the "Walk, Talk, Shop Walking Club" at Laguna Hills Mall on weekday mornings. Lifetime membership costs $5 and includes a club T-shirt, quarterly health magazine from Saddleback Memorial Medical Center and an identification card that offers 10% discounts at participating mall stores. The club meets between 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. at the mall, El Toro Road at Interstate 5, Laguna Hills. Information: (949) 586-8282.

Shopping center giant Simon DeBartolo Group, owner of the Mission Viejo Mall, has now purchased the Laguna Hills Mall, placing two competing retail centers under one ownership umbrella. The Indianapolis-based company, which owns 200 shopping centers in 34 states, has for some time been looking to expand in Southern California, a spokeswoman for the company said Wednesday. Simon DeBartolo is part owner of the Ontario Mills mall, which opened last fall.

The Laguna Hills Mall soon will be sold by its owner, Pan American Properties, which is divesting all of its real estate holdings in the United States, a company official said Wednesday. Brian Vernon, vice president of acquisitions for Pan American Properties, a New York-based real estate investment trust owned by a pension fund for British coal miners, said the mall and an adjoining strip mall are being sold as part of a portfolio of real estate holdings.

Sheriff's deputies were searching Friday night for a missing 42-year-old woman who suffers from Down's syndrome, authorities said. The woman, identified as Karen Smith of El Toro, has a mental capacity of a 3-year-old and was separated from a group during an outing Friday afternoon at Laguna Hills Mall, said Lt. Larry Richey of the Orange County Sheriff's Department. "Apparently there was a person who took a group of people with these types of problems over to the mall.

The company that owns Laguna Hills Mall will soon begin a multimillion-dollar renovation of the 70-acre regional shopping center that was built during the 1970s. The remodeling, which is expected to draw a number of new retailers, will be completed by the fall of 1994, mall Manager Jonathan Alpert said at a press conference Thursday.

The owner of Laguna Hills Mall is planning a major renovation and expansion that would add movie theaters, a new food court, parking garages, two new department stores and a second level of specialty stores. Expansion plans quietly submitted to the county would boost the mall's retail space by 67%, giving affluent South Orange County its first so-called "super-mall."

The Orange County Imagination Celebration's "Tapestry 2000," a free exhibit of 500 student artworks, will be on display today through Sunday at Laguna Hills Mall, 24155 Laguna Hills Mall. Information: (949) 586-8282.